ASSIGNMENT 1 Giving practical and relevant examples, craft a brand strategy for an organisation you are familiar with;

articulating how you would deal with imitates from China. [50]
Private brands strategy has of late become a superior category of management skills and a basis upon which customers shopping preference in retail channels is established. In fact, the marketing channels are facing increasingly fierce challenges, which include continuous development, new product types, new category management and new privately own brands that meet customers diverse demands .A brand strategy itself refers to the long term marketing support for a brand, based on the definition of the characteristics of the target consumers. It is essentially a game plan crafted to ensure the success of an organisation. According to Kerin and Patterson 1995, the term brand itself is used to identify an offering and set it apart from competing offerings. Therefore, with that having been said, the conclusion that can be drawn from this information is that the brand strategy of a company bears a certain level of uniqueness, besides being a blueprint for the gradual accumulation of brand equity. Pelsmacker (2001), emphasised that a brand strategy starts with the decision whether or not to put a brand name on a product. He went on to add that since branding is considered to be an essential element in pull marketing strategies, the products for which a push strategy would be indicated, will have relatively less need for formal branding. In this case, however, a brand name is necessary because of the inclusion of pull marketing strategies hence the term private brand strategy. The attractiveness of successful brands, largely as a result of value accumulated brand equity has resulted in numerous people having a desire to be somehow associated with the brand itself regardless of whether or not they possess the financial capacity to do so. It is this desire that has paved way for the introduction and growth of cheap imitates from China as they seek to capitalise on these needs of the general public. To imitate generally means to produce a semblance or likeness of, in form, character, colour, qualities, conduct, manners, and the like; to counterfeit or to copy. According to Pelsmacker (2001), brand equity is the added value that a brand name brings to a product beyond the products functional value and can be developed by consistently delivering high quality, building strong association between a brand name and a category or a set of benefits. Hence brand equity is the concept that is used to indicate the value of a brand. Chinese imitates pose a direct threat to the credibility of a companies brand equity in various ways. In order to effectively deal with these imitates, a comprehensive brand strategy needs to be put in place and aggressively implemented to weed out this external threat that continues to hempen the growth and development of Adidas. First of all, there is need to gain a more detailed view of the legal issues surrounding an imitate and its attributes. Although the practice of intentionally integrating the name, shape, symbol, colour, or "look and feel" of a leading brand to a new brand has been common and welldocumented since the mid-1800s, its perceived legality and acceptability are very much elusive. One reason may be that imitating is different from obvious forms of trademark infringement, such as counterfeiting and piracy, which are easy to define and identify. Brand imitation--or "passing off," in legal language--is based on similarities, and what is perceived to be similar to one party

may not be perceived as such by others. Because brand imitation is a legal issue involving passing off or "brand confusion," it is governed by trademark laws. The problem with these laws, however, is that apart from lacking in consistency and varying from country to country, each case is dealt with separately, and also the interpretation of the laws as they apply to each case is made by different people with different experiences, beliefs, and values. Therefore, from this piece of information, it is evident that in as much as there are trademark laws that try to minimise imitation, legal litigation alone is not good enough a measure as the case may easily be lost. As we have clearly defined the issues affecting imitation, we can now proceed to the processes involved in crafting a brand strategy. In deciding to brand a product, companies have mainly four possible strategies which are brand extensions, new brands, multibrands and family branding. According to Baker (1994), the right approach depends on the similarity of the position strategies of the brands. So in order to select an appropriate brand strategy for Adidas, l will now look at the implications created by these four products. The first one, brand extension, according to Ferrell and Pride (1982) occurs when an existing brand is used to market products in a different product category. In other words, it means transferring the name of a successful brand to additional products possessed by the company. There are numerous advantages that accrue from a company having adopted this type of marketing strategy. Baker (1994) stated that brand extension encourages customer confidence in a new product especially when the brand has already established a good reputation for its existing products. It can also create scale economies of scale in advertising and promotion in addition to opening distribution and retail channels in many areas. However, there are dangers that undermine the credibility of this brand strategy and one of these is that it confuses the brand identity of the firm which according to Park, Jaworski and MacInnis (1986) is the understanding consumers derive form the total set of brand-related activities engaged by the firm. Another disadvantage is that if the brand image does not fit the new product category or its new segment well, it is more likely to fail. For example, if a soap making firm was to extend its base of operation to making ice cream it would somehow distort its identity to its loyal customers. Another brand strategy that can be put under consideration is line extension. Line extension is according to Ferrell and pride (1982) sticking to existing product categories and using the same brand name for all new products introduced in a product category. Through line extensions, the company is able to enhance its competitive position of the brand by virtue of offering consumers more variety and as a result they would not be inclined to look to competitive brands to satisfy their needs. Also another advantage is that the favourable image is carried over to the new brand that are marketed with the same brand name so therefore there is more efficient use of the past communications investments in the brand to market more products. Consequently though, companies adopting this brand strategy run the risk of cannibalism that is new products may end up cannibalising the other products instead of driving market share away from the competition. The brand may also lose its meaning and clear positioning in the long run. Multibranding, another brand strategy, according to David Mecer (1998) is when a producer chooses to deliberately launch totally new products in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand for example Mazda introduced both Mazda 3 and Mazda 6. This is done so that the firm can accommodate the differences in consumer preferences in both cultural and personality

aspects. The advantage of this approach is that each brand is unique to each market segment and that there is no risk of a product failure affecting other products in the line. However, multibrands are costly to implement and maintain as they stretch a companys resources due to the fact that the company must generate awareness among consumers and retailers for each new brand name without the benefit of any previous impressions, hence promotional costs tend to be high. Lastly but not least of the four brand strategies, we have new brands. New brands are whereby new brand names are introduced in new product categories for example Sony has its PlayStation and Bravia range. Justification for this may be the companys sole belief that its existing brand is wearing and a new brand name is needed. This strategy bears the advantage that it if the companies brand fails on the market; it is more likely to have less of an effect on the new brands introduced by the same company. A serious demerit of this endeavour is that it can end up confusing the loyal customers of the firm and also leads to the company losing its identity. Before any meaningful decision can be made concerning the appropriate brand strategy, a few things need to be taken into consideration. According to Baker (1994), the right approach depends on the similarity of the position strategies of the brands. Baker went on to outline the principles for striking a balance as a guideline when choosing a brand strategy. One of these principles was that if the brands appeal to the same target segment, and have the same differential advantage, then it is possible for them to share the same company name or range since there is consistency in the positioning strategies. If the differential advantage is the same but the target market differs, then it may be safe to extend the company name because the benefits would be similar. However, if the differential advantages of the same company are different, it would be in its best interests to use separate brand strategies. The reason being that it can find some synergy if the brands are appealing to the same target market, by using the same company name with separate brand names for example different brands of Kelloggs may well be selected within the same unit. The last principle of striking a balance as interpreted by Baker (1994) is that if there is no similarity between both the target customers and the differential advantages, then using unique brand names would be logically the most appropriate strategy. Therefore, this would be more appropriate for certain companies who believe that it is worth losing out on the advantages of a common corporate name in an attempt to separately position the brands in the market. Having understood the implications that each brand strategy brings to the fore, my final decision for Adidas would be to use brand extension for I have taken into account the fact that the Adidas brands appeals to the same target segment as in they attract mostly the young and middle aged population in addition to having the same differential advantages. Hence I will now outline the stages that I plan to use in developing my marketing strategy. The first step in the process of developing a brand strategy is to define the brand itself. Defining who the brand is creates the foundation upon which all the other components are built on. The brand definition will serve as a measuring stick in evaluating any and all marketing materials and strategies. In this case this is a brand strategy for extending the Adidas brand to a range of luxury eyewear products. One of the functions of a brand definition is brand identity.

Communication is an essential vehicle in creating and sustaining business competitiveness. Discuss how you would use the marketing communications mix to service your market segments.